AT&T Nokia cell booster reboots randomly

Did you try port forwarding (not placing it in the DMZ) to the static IP address based on its MAC address? That seems to be more stable than just using the DMZ when your internet service is variable.

Spectrum (Charter) has a long history of issues with AT&T's femtocells (the original MicroCell and now the Cell Booster). They have always had issues with the required ports for AT&T's femtocells and blame AT&T for that (even tho it's Spectrum's backbone). 

If you have 400Mbps speed and are only getting 20Mbps down a 5Mbps up maximum that's a huge difference and indicates connection issues. Do you have to reboot every week to keep your connection stable or does it just happen on its own?

The Cell Booster rebooting while on a call is a loss of connectivity to the AT&T Mobility Servers. That could either an issue on AT&T's end or more than likely instability in the connection thru Spectrum.

Are your phones set to LTE? What kind of phones do you have?

Is the GPS antenna firmly connected and close to or on a window.

Can you do WiFi-C (WiFi Calling) because that is really the preferred method of improving poor in-home coverage.

See my Cell Booster Tech Guide, link is in my sig line for all that you need to know about the Cell Booster.

1. Did you try port forwarding (not placing it in the DMZ) to the static IP address based on its MAC address? That seems to be more stable than just using the DMZ when your internet service is variable.

No, just the DMZ, I will look into the port forwarding tonight when my wife is not working.

2. If you have 400Mbps speed and are only getting 20Mbps down a 5Mbps up maximum that's a huge difference and indicates connection issues. Do you have to reboot every week to keep your connection stable or does it just happen on its own?

I have 400Mbps but am only using 20Mbps down and 5Mbps up at peak load (my gaming, her working, my son gaming), so I have more than enough speed (Speedtest usually clocks me in at around 480Mbps).  I reboot my router every week just because it is something I have always done.  The Nokia cell booster, however, started rebooting on its own recently, once my wife started working from home.  She is an AT&T employee and uses a COU to handle her calls.  The phone she uses is an iPhone SE 2020 model, LTE.  She can't set it up to do WiFi calling (all our personal phones we can and do).

3. Is the GPS antenna firmly connected and close to or on a window.

Yes

Hi there @rjstewart3, we understand the importance of having a stable cell booster, and we'll be happy to help you with this.

We'd like to thank @OttoPylot for the great questions and recommendations they made regarding Cell Booster information and troubleshooting. We understand you've been rebooting your router weekly, however we recommend you also go through our Cell Booster support page for additional troubleshooting options to stop your device from randomly resetting. 

Please share the results of your troubleshooting, along with the port forwarding option our ACE mentioned, with us here.

Dylan, AT&T Community Specialist

@rjstewart3  The iPhone SE is capable of WiFi Calling. Any iPhone from the iPhone 6 is capable. I would look into that especially if your other phones can use WiFi-C.

Rebooting your router on a weekly basis is not healthy for a stable Cell Booster connection. Every time you reboot, the Cell Booster goes thru the Initial Activation procedure (as detailed in my Guide), part of which is determining local tower strength (for location, handing off, Cell Booster output strength) etc. It can't damage anything but you may see signal output etc differences. 

I'm not familiar with a COU.

ATTHelp is script driven and won't offer much real help.

The iPhone SE is WiFi calling capable, the company just won't let her set it up to use the WiFi calling. The company has the phone settings locked, so it has to go through the cell booster.  Without the booster, we only get one bar of service, and even then that is spotty.  When the booster reboots, the call drops as it doesn't swap over to the nearest tower to us.

COU just means Company Owned Unit.

Thanks for the COU definition. So, she works for AT&T but they won't allow WiFi-C on their "business" phones? Interesting.

Ok, try this. Place the SE close to the Cell Booster. The same room is usually sufficient. Make sure the phone is set to LTE. If you don't have that option, then the phone will automatically use LTE. Turn the phone completely off (not just Standby), wait a few seconds, and then turn it back on. It could be that your phone needs to register the Cell Booster as part of its cellular neighborhood. Your phone should indicate LTE and you should see the 4G/LTE light flash once the phone connects to it. That connects the phone to the Cell Booster. Now, if the Cell Booster keeps power cycling and re-booting, that means it has lost its connectivity to AT&T and the cause is either on the AT&T side or your internet connection thru Spectrum.

You might also want to try a Reset of the Cell Booster. The instructions are in my Tech Guide. However, I would not routinely reboot your router every week. If you need to do that for reliability, then that's a problem with Spectrum.

OK, I have followed your guide on setting the UDP ports, pass-through, and other router configurations.

What I am seeing (sitting here watching the cell booster after doing the above changes on my router) is that all the lights will suddenly go from white to orange, then the Power and GPS light will start blinking white.  The GPS light will then go solid white, with the Power light still blinking.  When the Power light goes solid white, the other three lights pop up white (Internet and Status), while the 4GLTE light will either be solid white, or blinking white (which I read in your writeup as being either in standby mode or in-use).  

I have rebooted the booster and will see how it handles tomorrow.

The flashing power light just means it is powering up and communicating with the other functions. The flashing GPS light means it is checking your location and checking for the nearest tower for handing off, maintenance, etc. Once all the lights turn a solid white, you are good to go. The flashing white 4G/LTE means that someone is accessing the Cell Booster (it's probably your phone). The phone app will give display the status of the Cell Booster so you should check that as well.